It's a Fine Line
by Lauropia
Summary: Liam and Maria have always been aware of the other through the six years they've been at the school, but how will they win the other's heart while her brother keeps getting in the way? How will Liam learn courage? How will Maria react when her failure of a mother tries to reconnect with the children she gave up that dark October morning? Watch as this witch and wizard find love.
1. Chapter 1

**It's a Fine Line**

**CHAPTER I**

_Written by*: Laura and Utopia_

The library was its usual that evening, nicely quiet besides the fluttering of the books sorting themselves out above, a blessed sanctuary for the curious of heart. In his secluded, well-lit corner nook, a teenaged boy with wavy bangs hanging to his cheek bones was perusing the pile of books he had set on his lamp table. His eyes flit over the spines and covers of the tomes, searching for a title which peaked his interest. The Labyrinth and the Sorcerer, no, no, he had read that one in his fourth year. He let the story float into the stream of books above him, knowing it would find its correct spot on the shelves by itself. As a Ravenclaw, the boy had spent his six years trying to absorb all he could from the vast collection the Library offered; it was not uncommon to fall upon the same book more than once, considering his literary taste was limited to adventure novels and muggle studies.

More titles with which he was familiar passed, and he began to become frusterated until he saw a red volume with golden leaves embossed into the cover. Fascinated with the bold colors, assuming some association with the Gryffindor house, he opened the untitled work to devour the new read. Inside was a story of a nervous herbologist and a wood nymph, how they met one spring while sewing seeds at a field and fell instantly in lo—

Immediately the Ravenclaw closed the book and sent it into the stream above his head. Sure, he loved adventure stories, but a romance? You have got to be kidding. His name was Liam O'Connor, and above all things, he was not a romantic—he did not believe that enduring love existed on this side of the grave. He scrunched his nose and the long, crooked figure of his father ascending on the stick of a broom, leaving him holding onto his beloved mother, her stomach swollen with the twins, and crying. Liam shrugged off the memory with a quiet chuckle and stood from his arm chair to gaze at the shelves for something else. He hated the idea of wooing women. All through the years, his peers and elder students all seemed to fall in love with a different person every week, breaking up with and cheating on anyone willing to date them. Liam didn't want to be rejected… and he didn't want to hurt any one. Therefore, why pursue a relationship at all?

Whilst gathering a new pile of books together, Liam's stewing thoughts were broken by loud laughter as someone pushed him from behind. Liam tumbled to the ground with his arm full of muggle studies books, and the tomes grunted in protest as they fell to the floor. The Ravenclaw blew his hair from his face and glared up at his attacker with annoyed green eyes.

"H-hey!" He stammered, realizing the guy standing above him was the Beater from the Slytherin team, Thomas Jameson. He was a rude jock who seemed to have everything… Good grades, a dad, a fun sister, looks, confidence… yeah, this guy was pretty much good at everything. Thomas smirked down at Liam.

"Oh," He said, pushing his long black hair back, and then he got down to Liam's eye level, "what are _you_ doing down here, _Bookworm_?" He mocked, patting Liam's face, "Better get off the floor before you mess up your uniform, _eh_?"

The Slytherin walked away, laughing spitefully. The brunette picked himself off of the ground and dusted off his robes, which were now covered in dust from the old books that had fallen around him. His throat was dry with fear, and he wished he had had the courage to punch Thomas in the face when he had had the chance. The bully had picked on him since the very first year, and he had never even once stood up to the creep.

How different one person can be, yet come from the same egg. You see, Thomas had a sister named Maria; they shared the same number of years, the same household, the same face, yet so different. Now, Liam had never officially met Maria, but she seemed to be kind hearted and friendly; especially compared to her Slytherin brother. In fact, which House was she even in? Huh…

Liam decided he was tired from reading and was ready to go back to his tower and sleep. With a sigh he turned the corner of the book case to collide into the very girl he had been thinking about.

***Disclaim: Hogwarts and canon characters are owned by J.K. Rowling.**

**_A/N: word count is 762. _**


	2. Chapter 2

It's a Fine Line

Chapter 2.

As usual this curious heart Ravenclaw was curly up her favorite chair in her blessed sanctuary away from her brother when he's in one of his moods. She did love her blessed brother but not when he was in one of his moods. 'I swear he more of a girl then I am,' she thought sourly to herself turning the page in a the book she was trying to read in the Library. Maria loved books and they were one of the few things that she had that her brother couldn't take. He hated to read for pleasure. 'Sometimes I wonder what happen to the sweet boy I used to know.'

Maria was reading a love story but her heart wasn't really in to it. She had seen what love could do. It was just months after her and her twin's birth their beautiful veela mother felt trapped and jumped ship so to speak; leaving beyond a husband and two young children. So since then she and her brother had been brought up by her single father who swore of dating forever. It wasn't a bad up bringing for a modern wizarding girl but sometimes she which her father would get over her mother. She didn't care her mother suffered from the baby blues.

It goes to show that Maria had a good head on her shoulders even with the silly moments that she wished the boy she had a crush on would look at her but she didn't trust her heart to just anyone. Her brother and his friends seem to make their mission to make sure no one falls for Maria. It had worked for years but now Maria just didn't care.

Laughter pulled her from her book that she was reading. She saw her brother push someone down. Maria was getting annoy with her brother's bully ways. When the engagements were done between the two Maria was standing because it was her fellow Ravenclaw Liam. Her brother walks over toward Maria with a spring in his step. She sighs as she closes her book. "Was that need? I think the poor boy has been through enough," She said with angry tone. Thomas stopped mid-step and looked guiltily at Maria. "It wonders you're the older sibling not I when you act like such a child. Dad will be mad when he founds out."

Thomas looked at Maria with annoy; "You wouldn't dare," he said with a growl in his tone. She gave him a look as if to say 'I would.'

"I would, he would love to know how your grades are doing," She said. "It wonder how I get good grades when I hardly study and you barely study unless I drag you into study before your tests and bully you into doing your homework." He growled as he marched away to study.

She smirks as she gathers her books. Holding her notebook to her chest her olive skin tone shinned in the setting sun that stream through the big hallway windows. Her auburn-black hair curly into tight ringlets making her hair seems shorter; her sea blue eyes were stunning against the darkness of her skin and hair making them seems lighter.

She had her Ravenclaw scarf on but it bit chilly in the Library but the scarf she had a on a light blue shirt the falls below her knees and black pants. She was also wearing black boots. Maria wonder how she able to juggle Quidditch, her studies and keep up with her brother and his friends. She was the mother of the group and she has chased the boys down to make sure they did their work. Speaking boys she wants to check on the boy who brother had been teasing. She didn't go far when she walked into him.


	3. Chapter 3

**It's a Fine Line**

**CHAPTER III**

_Written by*: Laura and Utopia_

With two loud '_Oooph'_ s, the two clumsy Ravenclaws crashed together, sending Maria to her rear onto the floor, and Liam dazedly across her body, piled in a great heap. Liam's face was in the dainty nape of her neck, his mouth separated from her skin by only the long blue-and-bronze knit scarf that she had wrapped cozily around herself. Her smooth black curls were splayed out on the floor now from when she went down, seeming to become a pleasingly stark contrast to the white marble of the grey-flecked ground beneath them. For a moment, all the supposedly intelligent wizard could do was hold his mouth open ajar, glazedly meeting her flecked blue eyes with his, feeling her underneath his chest. Wow, those crystalline blue eyes. Images of the sea flashed into his mind, memories of standing on an icy shore, feeling the salty breeze stick in his wavy hair, lazily combing the beach with his mother, before his little brothers came into the world. It was a time of peace and affection that he was remembering, the one time during the divorce in which Liam could remember his mother actually being happy to be rid of his father, who had left. It was a good memory.

All at once, the boy came to himself and shook his head, embarrassed at having held eye contact for so long with a girl he had just knocked to the ground, and he scrambled to his feet, picking up her papers and stammering his apologies in nervous chattering, going on and on about nothing.

"Anyway, I-I'm really v-very sorry, Maria!" He said, knowing that his Irish pallor was now probably stained a deep cranberry shade, a quality his mother and he shared when they were flustered, and the teenager hugged the pretty girl's notebooks to his chest, trying to steady his nerves that had been shaken up twice by being knocked to the ground in the last five minutes.

"I'll m-make it up to you; how 'bout I carry these?" he gestured to her things that he was holding, with a sort of shrug that helped him get a better grip on the items. Among the stack were a bunch of romance novels, one actually being the crimson-and-gold covered book he had only just put down. There were a million school books as well, but the fact that she appeared to enjoy romance stuck out in his mind. Why would she read this stuff? He bet that her boyfriend wouldn't like it… because a girl with a face like hers wouldn't be able to remain single for long. There were a lot of guys on the Quidditch teams who teased eachother to ask Maria out (he was the bludger-fetcher for one semester in his third year and had had multiple dealings with the jocks in this way), and Liam was sure she was tied down. Not that love ever lasted, anyway. He straightened up and brought his eyes to hers again.

"Wh-where were you h-h-headed to? I was headed to the tower. You're in my house right?" he asked stupidly, although he had failed to connect the colors of her scarf with his own house, "O-or aren't you Slytherin, l-like your twin, Thomas?" He gulped as he said that, realizing that if she were a part of either house which was located in the dungeons he would surely not be brave enough to take her all the way down to the dormitories, at least not without running virtually the whole way. As he was afraid of the ghosts that made their homes down there, the Ravenclaw always avoided the place… not to mention the Head Boy for Slytherin, Thomas, would probably corner him on the way back and finish what he had started in the Library down there, where no one could see. Liam was so lucky he was a Ravenclaw, considering that the creeky old tower was cozy for him, up where the owls perched, keeping half-hooded eyes out for squeaking rodents in the grassy fields that swayed in the nocturnal breeze below. Good thing the brunette was only claustrophobic, not acrophobic!

The girl was really very pretty, the curly haired brunette noticed, and he really wondered about her race. Her accent was French, and her nose probably should have tipped him off about that, as well, but her skin was dark and her cheekbones abnormally high and jutting. Her dark hair, ebony with small natural strands of dark chestnut, was curled and made her mane bounce attractively just above her shoulders. Just what sort of people were in the twin's bloodlines was not apparent on either's face, though they were probably religious, considering Thomas had such long hair. Possibly Indian or Native American? Their skin was so dark, though… like coffee with honey and cream.

***Disclaim: Hogwarts and canon characters are owned by J.K. Rowling.**

**_A/N: word count is 805._**


	4. Chapter 4

It's a Fine Line

Chapter 4.

"Oooph's" she said as land on her rear end losing her notebook and Liam land across her body. 'Boy he's heavy but hand… No don't go there Maria.' She thought to herself. She blushed deep cherry red color.

"It's ok Liam," said Maria gently getting off the ground. "I didn't see you nor did you see me. I am sorry about my brother Thomas. I don't know what has gotten into him lately." She smile at Liam. "You don't have to."

Liam would be surprised to learn Maria never had a boyfriend. Her brother and his friends had made sure of that. Not that she wants one. She knew of the jocks tease each other to ask her out but they always run scared when Thomas ran into them. Maria knew her brother was just trying to protect her but Thomas over did it sometimes.

"Back to the Ravenclaw claw come on," she said simple. "Are you mad? Me in the same house has my moody brother forget it. I would have killed him before we finished our first term here. I already want to kill him." She stood with her arms across showing a silver bracelet with her name engraved in it.

She blushed when she caught him staring at her again. Maria knew she was a very pretty girl; she wonders if he looking at her as a person or because of her veela blood. "Please don't stare," she said. "I get enough of that outside the house." Maria's hair was longer then it appeared because of the ringlets. She truly did not see the beauty everyone else saw; Maria didn't see how her smile reaches her eyes or when her ideas in her mind her eyes turn to Crystal Sea blue color.


	5. Chapter 5

**It's a Fine Line**

**CHAPTER V:**

_Written by*: Laura and Utopia_

Liam was surprised when Maria mentioned and apologized for his very recent encounter with her brother and shrugged it off, feeling a profound embarrassment again, angry at himself over the fact that he did not stand up to the slimy arse. The Ravenclaw boy was a moderate height, his dark ash brown hair draping to his low, feverish cheeks and even past them, falling in brunette waves that were far too short for a girl's hair cut and a tiny bit too long for a boy's hair cut. It was a style somewhere in the middle, as if the hair a top his head had just as much of a mediocratic root as Liam had willpower in his heart.

As the Ravenclaw picked her things up, he thought Maria had begun to protest for a moment, but was vastly relieved to realize that the appealing girl was simply being pleasingly polite; she was not insisting that he unhand her belongings at once, and never talk to her again. The eagle gave her a tentative grin that quickly quivered, then faded away, though his gemstone green eyes were still smiling with happiness.

"It's fine, I don't mind—the least I can do after pinning you down like that. Going up, are you? I'll walk you, sure." His accented voice had dropped the irritating stammer and instead seemed to have added to itself an exciting _accelerando. _

Maria seemed absolutely incredulous that Liam had suggested she be a Slytherin, expressing clear contempt for her identical sibling, which really made the ever-questioning Ravenclaw wonder; Why on earth was Thomas as rude and crass as he was? Even his sister thought he behaved like a fool. Could the tough Slytherin be intimidated by Liam and Maria intellectually? When might this have happened? Liam shook his thoughts away, not willing to bog his mood down any further with thoughts of his annoying nemesis.

The raven-haired beauty happened to catch his eye just as he was admiring her curls, and he blushed and looked away with a pout, positively ashamed to have been caught. The eagless requested that he stop staring, and he felt even more discomfited. What did she expect, looking as beautiful as that? He had only just been observing her features, not drooling over her body and having delitefully dirty thoughts…

In the end, Liam cleared his throat, not answering her remark, and turned in the hallway toward the upward-spiraling stair case on top of which was perched the Ravenclaw common room and dormitories. Liam began to count the torches on the wall in the silence, trying to think up something to say. All had been awkward silence the entire time, until they reached the first step of the spiral staircase, and began up it together.

Liam quite enjoyed himself on his frequent trips up the stairs, counting 83 steps from the third floor landing to the entrance into the penthouse every single time. He found that it was only when he was upset or distracted that he happened to miscount, which had served as a good indicator to him for when he needed to get alone by himself to think through his emotions or problem. More than once he had trotted up the steps, counting as he went, and came up with the wrong number. One time it had been when he saw his dad at Diagon Alley and his father hadn't so much as glanced at him, leaving him to begin his second year at Hogwarts with out hope that his father would ever care about him again. He had needed to sit on the thought a while before he could accept facts for facts…

"So… uh, this book, here…" He gestured to the red book with the golden markings, "_The Farmer and the Nymph_, right? Is it a favorite of yours?" He knew he had seen her with the book several times before that day, sitting in corners, drifting lazily through the courtyard on her broom, eating breakfast, going through day after day after day with her nose in it. The fact that he had remembered her enjoying the volume so much was part of what had caused Liam to choose it from the shelf in the first place, come to think of it. Liam had a few favorite books himself, preferring adventurous reads, of course, especially Muggle science fiction novels. Mechanics simply intrigued the wizard—he had a serious curiousity as to what exactly this witch was into, for whatever reason.

***Disclaim: Hogwarts and canon characters are owned by J.K. Rowling.**

**_A/N: word count is 751. _**


	6. Chapter 6

**It's a Fine Line**

**Chapter six.**

"Thank you," she said. 'Boy hand… No don't go there Maria.' She thought to herself. She blushes deeper blood red color. "I didn't mean to snap but everyone who knew my mother calls me just has beautiful even with the darker skin."

"It's ok Liam," said Maria gently. She wanted to make him let go of her muggles books. She was somewhat famous for her love of muggles things. Maria kind of knew what bugging her brother but didn't want Liam to know. He was scared of losing his little sister to a boy who couldn't protect her or would leave her with kids to take care of. Maria blew her hair up in annoy.

She smiled as they walked. Maria started to count the torches trying to come up with something to say. In her first year she counts hundred three torches on the way to her dorm. Only times she missed counted was when she was upset or mad at her brother.

"It one of the only love story I'll read." She said. 'It true, without my arm being twisted behind my back that is.' "But I mostly read adventure books. The more Muggle the book is the longer I'll read it." Her voice was soft as she blushes an even deeper red cherry red almost blood colored. "It the only book I can use to get my brother off my case during is moodiest."

"So what yours?" she asked. Maria had notice him read the Muggle science fiction novels a few times. She also read comic. Mostly the foreign ones from America and Japan that cousins send her. "I've seen you read a few of my favorite muggles books." They came to enter to the common room and the painting of Lady of Ravenclaw. Words failed Maria has they stood there.


End file.
